Pretty much every night when we get home (unless it’s REALLY raining) we take a stroll to “baby park”, which is a short walk/bike ride from our house. There is a network of paths that run behind the houses in the neighborhoods around here and forms what we call “the walking path”.

It’s nice because you only have to worry about cars when the path crosses the street and there are a few parks and things, like "baby park", along the way that provide opportunities for breaks and distraction. (“Baby park” differentiates the little park on the walking path from “Big park” which is Discovery Meadows. Big park is also technically in walking distance but it wears poor Carson out so badly the trip home can be less than enjoyable. In general though, McMinnville’s parks ROCK!) Carson usually rides his bike to “baby park”, Scott and I walk and Nolan rides in his stroller and eats Cheerios. Sometimes we manage to go straight to the park, and sometimes we get distracted by really important things – like throwing things down the big storm drain.

But we do arrive eventually and let the kiddos run around for a while… all three of them!

Carson came home with us on September 26, 2006 - which made him 9 months and 24 days old. Today Nolan is the same age!
So here's a little break-down on Carson and Nolan at 9 months and 24 days...

It was a great weekend in the Burke house! Saturday started out with one of my favorite activities - house demolition! Really, if you've never had a chance to hammer (or kick!) a hole through the wall just for fun you should add it to you list of things to do someday. I learned that when I took students to New Orleans to gut houses in 2006 and got a chance to tear out walls again yesterday with some friends who are remodeling their house in Dallas. Thanks Paula and Murray for letting us kick holes in your walls for a couple hours!

Scott's mom and sister arrived in the afternoon and we spent the rest of the day hanging out with the kids, which involved tickle wars....

...serious banana eating (all eating is serious to Nolan)...



...and using sidewalk chalk to draw pictures and trace the kids...



...won't Carson be surprised to see his head...!

I'm not sure if I'm more amused by this headline, or the fact there's something in the world called the "Rodenator".
I miss Spokane sometimes!

Nolan had his 9-month check-up today, weighing in at 22 lbs 6oz (73rd percentile) and 28.5" tall (51st percentile). His head is circumference is nearly 90th percentile, which means his head is growing disproportionately larger than his height or weight... and makes him a typical Henson! Proof that at least some of my genes are present in the kid.

The Burke family had a great Easter day, which started with Easter baskets (Nolan's first) and included breakfast at Poppy & Nonna's, church (+egg hunt), lunch back up at Poppy & Nonna's and another egg hunt at Aunt Becky's in the late afternoon. It was a long day and we had two sleepy little boys on the way home, but we enjoyed the chance to spend time with so many of our friends and family. By the end of the day Carson was a little "egg hunted" out, and Nolan was just trying to get a good nap in somewhere, while Scott and I looked forward to some down time at home to end the weekend.

   

Hippity Hop...
        ...Hippity Hop...
                  ...the Easter bunny is getting closer to McMinnville!

   
...Nolan is completely confused about the purpose of an Easter egg...
...Mommy is having a little too much fun with those bunny ears...
...Carson wanted to draw train tracks on all the eggs with his crayon.

A few things have happened in the last few weeks which are worth noting on the blog, but have not morphed into entries due to time, travels or just plain thoughtlessness on the part of the blogger. 

First was the receipt of Carson’s passport while I was out hauling concrete blocks around Guatemala. It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about the paperwork involved with doing anything official for Carson (OK, I went and looked – summer 2007 was the last paperwork entry, so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much!), but back in mid-February we went and applied for passports for both the boys and it brought the situation to light again. Nolan needed a birth certificate, and his passport arrived in the mail in just over a week. For Carson’s application we had to send his Oregon birth certificate, his Guatemalan passport and his Yamhill County adoption decree. It took a month for anything to come in the mail and then it was a letter requesting his Certificate of Citizenship (which BTW was generated from the visa in his Guatemalan passport, was a requirement before the birth certificate or the adoption decree could be generated and was issued by the Federal government to start with, so you would think they would have access to a database somewhere that would more reliable than a piece of paper. These are the same people that told us our fingerprints would expire every 12 months…. But I digress.) So after nervously parting with basically every official document we possess, his passport finally arrived in the mail! We hear (time will tell if it’s true) that as long as we keep a current passport for him he shouldn’t have to produce all those documents each time he has to prove citizenship in the future. Very cool.

Second, the weather has been fabulous the last few days, sparking mommy's need to create daisy chain necklaces for Carson and show him how to put food coloring in water to make daffodils turn colors - and generating weird looks from Daddy who apparently never did either.

Also worth noting was the fact that yesterday afternoon, our entire family took naps at the same time. Even better than that, mine took place on the hammock in the sun while reading a purely-for-the-heck-of-it book. (Fiction no less, which is very unlike me.) I’m sure it was the first time that’s happened since Nolan was born – maybe since Carson came home. It was lovely – and we made a note to try for some similar family bonding again very soon!

It's baby steps for Nolan as he figures out how to take off across the room on two feet! I told him he needed to wait until I was back (or maybe more appropriately, I told those around him to wait to encourage him), and apparently someone listened... or is good at maintaining the illusion for me:) Either way, he's been gaining more confidence every day and today he actually started to walk between two people.
It won't be long now!!